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Monday, 12 April 2010

Such a Great Time

Well I feel like I've been away for a month not just eight days.
Five days on Skye and three at Glenfarg Folk Feast and I am just full to the brim with new ideas and stories to tell.
What a great time we had on Skye. Stunning weather the day we arrived with fabulous views over to the mainland with it's snow capped peaks.

We did get a couple of days of wind and rain but I didn't mind at all especially as we had not taken the tent and could listen to the howling gale from the comfort of the hostel. It's always a good laugh staying in a hostel. I like the sociable aspect of it and enjoy meeting people from all over the world. Many a game of cards was played and the children felt totally at home and were exceptionally well behaved.

We took the opportunity to walk the Quiraing this year. We parked at the top car park and walked all the way down through this spectacular scenery.

The path was easy going and mostly down hill. We met a few people coming at it the other way and they were pretty peched out. I'm glad we took the easier option. Our wee one got a shoulder high from Daddy most of the way (pretty impressive as he was also carrying the back pack!) and my son had to be goaded a bit here and there to carry on. They loved the little lochs on the downwards track though and spent ages throwing stones in while we spoke to a nice photographer chap.

The Quiraing itself is an amazing geological feature where the land has slipped and left a towering cliff faced ridge that runs for miles down this peninsula. Climbers and experienced hikers do all sorts of mad things up here to get on top of the ridge but we were happy to just wander through it taking in some of the best views that Skye has to offer.

The other great thing about Skye are all the fantastic galleries, studios and museums there are to visit. No matter what the weather there is something interesting to do.

The Museum at Staffin

This little museum is run by a local crofter who we had the pleasure of meeting the day we visited. The museum displays a marvelous selection of dinosaur fossils found locally here at Staffin. It's a fascinating area with a tremendous history.

One of the places I was very excited to visit was Shilasdair, The Skye Yarn company. They dye all their own wool here with plants from Skye and around the world. There wasn't any dying going on while we were there but it was still worth the visit. The shop and workshops are situated on the Waternish peninsula which is to the north west of the Island. The area really reminded me of the Dingle peninsula in the west of Ireland with rugged headlands and open views out to sea.

Just down the road from Shilasdair was Skye Skyns. I'll have to write a separate blog post about here as we really enjoyed our visit. Look at that stunning view from the showroom though!

Ian Williams Ceramics

Next door to Skye Skyns is the lovely Brae Fasach Studio. We met artist and ceramist Ian Williams here and enjoyed chatting with him about his work and the area.

Heaven's Ocean Studio

One of the highlights of our visit to Skye was visiting fellow Mixed Media artist and blogger Emma Siedle-Collins at her fantastic Heaven's Ocean Studio. Again we had such a lovely time that I'll write a separate post about our visit there.

So as the sun is shining and Spring seems to finally be here I must go and tackle the gigantic laundry pile and get some of it hung out to dry. Then I might get a chance to start on some of the new ideas that are brewing after all this great inspiration.

7 comments:

How beautiful it all looks. I went once but we didn't find any galleries or do any walking becasue we didn't know it well enough. I did buy my walking boots in Portree though.By the way , my efforts with the felting ball were disastrous. I got quite good at bouncing it but my felt was all holey. I think I'll do round a template and use the ball as a finishing former.

Glad you had a nice break. Fabulous photos. Its such an inspiring part of the world isn't it? And so many great craft studios and galleries to visit. Look forward to seeing your Skye inspired next creations!